A Letter to Anyone who’s ever had fight/s with their Partner

Before I begin, I’d just like to share a disclaimer that I am in NO way an expert on relationships. I’m just gonna speak to my experience 🙂 And so if you wanted some professional advice, maybe another article? But try your best not to read those super click-baity ones. They can actually make you more anxious.

And if you’re still here, then YAY. Because that means you too have had conflicts in your relationship big enough for you to read a letter such as this – and I’m not the only one. Big exhale.

I wasn’t really sure what I was going to say here but I felt it was important to write this.

Even though we know in the wise, logical parts of our mind that all relationships are bound to have problems… when we’re surrounded outside and online by pictures of happy, beaming couples and reading all about them – it can be easy to feel like you’re the only one who’s in a relationship that seems to be on a rough patch. And in a way, it can feel shameful.

But it’s not.

It’s absolutely okay to admit that we’re human, our partner is human, and we’re not 100% synced at all times. How can we be? Our needs change all the time, and settling into those needs and what that means for us and those we’re in relationship with takes time – so at the very least, there will be that transition period where it’s not all roses and adventures.

Recently I’ve also gone through what felt like a couple of weeks worth of roughness and non-alignment in my relationship and after passing that hurdle, I’m actually extremely grateful for it. No lie. I learned what I feel is one of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far regarding any relationship: that it takes serious endurance to commit to loving somebody.

I used to look at my parents’ relationship and wonder how they do it. And I guess that’s the answer.

The first part of our relationships where we build love and fall in love are awesome and they’re important. I imagine that it’s where we make all the emotional investments that we can bank on when we are going through the inevitable times of conflict. And in that honeymoon phase, love feels so good.

Fighting with your partner for a couple of weeks where the love in your heart feels like torture and you kinda just wanna throw it away and deny it cause it hurts… I feel like that’s where love becomes real – and real love is so valuable. Forget about your partner for a bit and acknowledge that if you’re capable of that real, enduring kind of love – then you’re kind of freaking awesome.Kind of like in the Velveteen Rabit:

When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

In its simplest way, we show endurance by sticking it out, waiting for the raw hurts and anger to subside, being patient enough with ourselves and our partners so that we both have the time to see the light and where we could give more and where we could take less – that shit is not easy. And that’s why it’s not shameful. Why should we be ashamed of our own strength.

It’s like what Marianne Williamson says

It takes strength of character to truly delve into the mystery of an intimate relationship, because it takes the strength to endure a kind of psychic surgery, an emotional and psychological and even spiritual initiation into the higher Self. Only then can we know an enchantment that lasts.”

She also says,

If you’re having a relationship problem try this: pray for the other’s happiness 5 minutes a day for 30 days. By the end of 30 days either the situation will change, or you won’t care. Either way will be a miracle: your own loving thoughts will have delivered you to inner peace.

I suppose that’s all I really felt had to be said today. Hope it was of some value.